Ninjas in Pop-Culture

Ninjas appear frequently in modern culture such as books, movies, video games, and television.

These sources often portray ninja in non-factual ways for humor or entertainment

Depictions range from realistic

to the fantastically exaggerated

Ninja's Appearance

The stereotypical ninja that continually wears easily identifiable black outfits comes from the kabuki theater. Prop handlers would dress in black and move props around on the stage. The audience would obviously see the prop handlers, but would pretend they were invisible. Building on suspension of disbelief, ninja characters also came to be portrayed in the theatre as wearing similar all-black suits. This either implied to the audience the ninja were also invisible, or simply made the audience unable to tell a ninja character from many prop handlers until the ninja character distinguished himself from the other stagehands with a scripted attack or assassination.

History of the Shadow Warrior

The history of the Ninja is hard to trace. This is because there were few, if any records kept of its existance. Most of what is known about the ninja is taken from stories that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Nonuse ("the art of stealth") was first introduced to Japan in 522 A.D. as a religion practiced by priests. These priests were not violent people, they were "mystics" who gathered and shared information for the ruling classes. The ninja as we know them were not introduced until later.

It wasn't until 645 A.D. that the priests perfected their fighting skills and made use of their knowledge of nonuse. This was because they found themselves being harassed by the central government and found in necessary to protect themselves.

In 794-1192 A.D. the new civilization flourished and with it, a new class of wealthy, privileged families. These families fought with one another in attempts to make or destroy emperors. The need for spies, informants and now assassins grew as these families dueled for power. They were suspicious and jealous of one another and would resort to any means necessary to eliminate any possible threats. Therefore, the practitioners of nonuse were in great demand. With this, the ninja was born.

Tools of the Trade

To complete their assignments, ninjas used a variety of tools, such as...

Gunpower and smokebombs

Shobo, wooden rings with lumps on the end to hit pressure points with

Ninjatos, small swords

and Shuriken, throwing stars

Ninja Photos

Ninjas

A Ninja is a warrior specially trained in a variety of unorthodox arts of war. The ninja originated in feudal Japan in the 14th century. Roles of the Ninja may have included sabotage and assassination. Ninjas worked under feudal lords or other high paying contractors and used guerilla warfare to defeat their enemies.

Population

This a a map showing the population of Japan

Defining Features

While Japan may look almost exactly like the rest of Asia, there are many defining features that set it apart from other countries.

Mount Fuji is one geographical feature that is unique to Japan.

The Ginza, a economical district of Tokyo, is an uppermarket area filled with department stores and a wide variety of upclass shopping. It also is home to many notable coffeehouses and fine resturaunts.

Map of Japan

This is a map of Japan.

Geographic Location

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the pacific ocean, it lies to the East of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea, and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the North to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the South. Japan is compromised of over 3,000 islands which make it an archipelago. The geographical alignment of Japan includes latitude of 36 o 00' N and longitude of 138 o 00' E. The country of Japan integrates 377,835 square kilometers of area in the Eastern region of Asia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan